


In Any Other Story

by Squidink



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Gen, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-09
Updated: 2009-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:17:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squidink/pseuds/Squidink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emil Blonsky is more or less than a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Any Other Story

**Author's Note:**

> Criticism welcomed.

There is nothing to do but wait.

It is perhaps this precarious stillness, most of all, which vexes Emil; the lack of ability to freely move when he is flanked on either side by soldiers just a little too rigid to be absolutely professional.  The 'containment bracers' envelop his all-too-human hands entirely, all the way to the midpoint of his forearm.   The seams pinch his skin sharply. His chest is bare – the lack of Kevlar like losing his skin – save for a sticky EKG patches, scattered haphazardly over his torso.  There were so many little wires and patches and computers, monitoring every little detail, breaking him down into a series of blips on a screen.

He twists his hands, knowing it will do nothing to aid him.  Not as if there is anything else _to_ do, half-hanging from a friendlier version of manacles and waiting for his transport to some other hidden bunker.  He has been transferred from lab to lab to lab, poked and prodded and gawked at.  Sometimes he is sedated, sometimes blindfolded, always restrained. The edgy soldiers sneak sideways glances, fingering their weapons.   They itch to use them, amateur and childish.  As if they would be able to stop him.

Blonsky almost scoffs  – _almost_ – but it's no good to try that, even if his throat wasn’t still bruised from the chain.  They'll think him plotting, struggling again, like he did when they induced his reversion, and pump him full of that cocktail of sedatives.  Across the room and behind bulletproof glass, medical professionals in their crisp white uniforms watch him steadily, surrounded by a menagerie of blinking lights and strange machines that remind Emil sharply of old science fiction movies, aliens and beasts and green-skinned women who were disappointingly ordinary.

He suddenly grits his teeth, back contracting painfully as something more or less that human presses against his skin, urging to push through, to metamorphosize, to grow.  Be more than himself.

Ha. Green.

It always came back to that, didn't it?

There is a shuffling of alarm, palpably coppery, and several rifles swing about to point at him, even when the heart monitor is settling back to its easy rhythm.  There is a hum of electricity from his restraints, a crackling charge just static-laced enough to be threatening tracing its way along the cables that hold him to the ceiling.  His mouth curves up in an apologetic grin, and he tilts one shoulder up in a wry shrug. 

The clean-cut figures are less than amused, eyes narrow and mouths pinched.  They remind Emil so strikingly of the rats he used to take pot-shots at in his youth.   He should probably be disturbed by the mental equivalent, but he's not, and maybe it's this more than anything else – spikes and all – that makes him feel less like a man.

Behind the doctors and scientists and technicians, the door flings open, only stopped from crashing into the wall and a likely expensive piece of machinery by a hastily thrown arm.  A man in a cheap suit that screams of bureaucracy is already pointing straight at Blonsky, turning to regard whoever else is coming through—ah.  Thaddeus Ross wags his head from side to side, raising his hands and looking haggard.  He doesn't so much look through the glass.  Behind them, the men and women in white shuffle away, keeping their eyes to their stations and their duties even if their ears wander.  It might have been a good time to initiate an escape, but for now, the guns and drugs and humming electricity is enough to keep Blonsky complacent.  There will be opportunities later.

Ross gestures to the lab equipment all around them, likely saying something about being outfitted to handle it, or perhaps having experience in Blonsky's 'condition', or even some inane stonewalling in the name of protocol.

The indignant man shakes out a paper, free hand still jabbing in Blonsky's direction.  Perhaps even a handler sent to retrieve misused property, now full of American chemicals and American secrets.  They would have to get in line; Emil is now a man in high demand, even to the elusive ghost that is SHIELD.  He is not stupid.   No one wants to let him slip away, slink off like Banner into the terrifying unknown.

 _Banner_.  Banner, Banner, Banner.

Beneath his skin, deeper than anyone can see, something uncoils; something more than Emil.  Better, worse, more than words could describe, a monster in the shape of every bad lot the world had ever given him.    _Banner_.   It wasn't possible, it wasn't right, that he had been so easily taken down.   He was professional, a career soldier, almost without equal.  He should have been unstoppable, a force of nature itself, immune to age and fear and pain.  Banner had cheated.   It was the only way.  He had had some secret technique, some hidden skill that Blonsky had not known of, had not had time to learn.  How could Banner, of all people, so easily surpass him?  He had worked so _hard_ , had been the best, the very best –

And still he is second rate.

Blonsky shifts, and collectively the room freezes, watching him intently.   He does not bother to appear contrite, this time, meeting the collective stare frankly.  They all know what he is, now, even if they can't see it.  He smiles, crooked and sharp, drifting his gaze across all of them, each and every one, until he comes to the last man.

Ross looks— just _looks_ at him like Blonsky's his prodigal son or some kind of monster, and Emil wishes his vocal chords weren't so much pulp in his throat so he could laugh, or maybe howl, or maybe he just wanted throttle one of them until cartilage popped and he could almost feel human.

And he thinks, in any other story, he might have been the hero.


End file.
